Challenge your images!
Technology is changing, but what about our images of old people? Why aren’t they changing?
Speaker: Britt Östlund
Abstract: An increased average life expectancy and growing older populations are among the biggest social changes of our time and the subject of major investments in research and development. When Betty Friedan wrote her path-breaking book “The Fountain of Age” in the 1990s, she did not expect anything to change for the better for old people until their own voice was heard. Since then, the population pyramid has become squarer and taken as evidence that the needs of elderly care are increasing dramatically. But is that true? What is increasing? And what is changing? What is not changing?
Bio: Britt Östlund is Professor in Technology in Health Care at the Royal Institute of Technology, KTH, in Sweden. Since thirty years, dedicated to research and development in aging, technology and design today focusing digitization of home health care and services. Formerly responsible for the Ageing and design program at Lund University, currently active to build the KTH Digital Futures, internationally to promote social awareness and social uptake of digital resources, and to involve older users in design and implementation.